A Man And His Titan
by Norwest
Summary: Sequel to "My Other Monster is a Warhound:" Four crazies crew a Titan...what could possibly go wrong?
1. Teaser

_NOTE: This story won't make any sense without reading the terribly-named "My Other Car is a Warhound," which you can find on my profile. It was my first real fic and I make no promises about its quality, but if "Titan makes stuff go squish" is your kind of story, then give it a shot!_

* * *

"**Team 1, approaching target."**

"**Base copies. Keep formation, weapons hold."**

"**Understood. We're ready for – wait…"**

"**Base to Sky-Eye. Update?"**

"**Sky-Eye here. All quiet."**

"**Base to Team 1: check in."**

"…"

"**Base to Team 1: check in."**

"Twin priests."

"Ten high."

"_Three sevens_."

"Read 'em and weep, bitches. Twin Thrones and the Emperor."

"_WHAT? Cheater._"

"**Base here. All ground teams, check in."**

"…"

"**Team 2, ready."**

"**Team 3, ready."**

"**Team 4, rea-HOLY SH-"**

"**Base to all units. Execute plan Theta, effective immediately."**

"How in the…"

"He's cheating again. Check the sleeves."

"You wish!"

"_I don't wish, I know. Card holder, left sleeve, .3 cm from the elbow_."

"Osirus, you bastard!"

"**Team 3, under heavy fire and requesting-"**

"**Sky-Eye here. Enemies sighted on north-"**

"**Base copies. Fall back, support is inbound."**

"**Could use that support about now, sir!"**

"Hmm...you think they'll call us yet?"

"Should've done it from the start, really."

"You _do_ realize that they were aiming for a 'stealth' mission here, right?"

"So?"

"Tomas, you're not so good at being quiet."

"I can too be quiet!"

"_Appx. 1.3-hours after drinking_."

"What he said. Plus, you can't hold your booze."

"Can too, you bastard!" OK, that last part was true.

"**Team 2, check in."**

"**Sky-Eye here. Team 2's position is overrun by enemies, estimate platoon-strength."**

"**Base to all teams. Fall back, support is inbound."**

"**Already said that before!"**

"**Base to Warmonger. Deployment is a go."**

Showtime!

Plus, now I can stop losing more money to Corrun. _Cheating bastard._

_I heard that._

* * *

_Altitude appx. 12357 meters, rate of descent 123.6 meters/second_ as we fall like a rock. Actually, scratch that. With the rockets that launched us dirtside, we're leaving rocks a long way behind. Playing cards swirl around everyone's flesh-bodies as Vicky does her best to impersonate a plasma torpedo.

"**Base to Warmonger. Report status."**

"Arrr, cap'n, we be a wee bit late fer the party, but we be bringin' plenty o'gifts fer arr gracious hosts!" I respond. _Bastard should've sent us earlier_, I repeat over the mind-link.

_Probably_, Corrun responds. _Umm, boss, where're we landing anyway?_ Right…crap. _Lessee…_"Cap'n, do ye be needin' anything in that there house?" I ask over the vox.

"**Preserve target building. Wait one…OK, new orders. Minor damage to building is acceptable, Warmonger."**

_Right, people, you heard the nice man,_ I announce to my crew, sketching the plan out in my head. They receive it with a total lack of surprise. _A bit drastic, yes?_ Thade asks over the mind-link. _True, but on the other hand frakkitall_, I respond. _Also, turn down that damn vox!_

With the heat-shield still doing its job, the Warhound-class Titan _Invictorus_ screams into the city like a world-ending fireball. Hmm…well, in some ways we kind of are. _Heh-heh-heh-heh…_

**FWOOSH! **Rockets borrowed (re: "legally stolen") from an Imperial Guard landing ship fire at 5km from the ground, slowing our speed from "crater-making" to "suicidally unsafe." A Warhound-class Titan is awfully heavy, but these landing-rockets were designed to put 100-square-meter rockcrete structures on the ground safely – strap on enough of the things, and you're set. We continue dropping, and I once again curse gravity for making my life tough. _Who needs physics, anyway?_

_Void shields fully powered, custom "Oh Shit" parameters loaded _and Vicky is set for landing. "Brace!" I yell unnecessarily with my flesh-voice as we reach 1km from the ground. Mental affirmatives reach me as I relax myself as much as I can, waiting for the **FWOOSH!** there they are. With the third-stage rockets fired, I activate Vicky's external voice-casters and count down from _5…4…3…2…1…_

"**DYNAMIC ENTRY!"**

* * *

_People have been asking me if I'll continue writing about Tomas and his merry band of batshit-crazies, from the badly-named "My Other Car Is A Warhound." Short answer: ay-yup! Here's the first chapter - reviews appreciated!_


	2. Oops!

**Hate.**

**HateragepainfearrageKILL.**

_Hey, Vicky. Howdy-do this morning?_

_Invictorus_ is in her usual (bloody-minded) spirits today, as I straighten her from a landing crouch and guide her away from what's left of the target building. Meter-wide logs snap like toothpicks as the Warhound-class Titan grinds through the splintery wreck. _Alright, who should we shoot today?_

Thade just gives me a mental frown; I respond with a smiley face. Corrun projects the image of a black-clad soldier (and it is ALWAYS black - why can't special forces wear hot pink anyway?) - the personal minions of my new boss, Inquisitor Gillian. "Anyone who doesn't look like that is an enemy - which you would know if you weren't sleeping through the briefing, boss."

Oh. Right. _Oops...-ish_. I turn north, seeing a bunch (group? gaggle? murder? clusterfrak?) of enemies doing the same. No coordination, shitty fire discipline, eyes all pointed forward: my old Sentinel team would've eaten them for breakfast. I move Vicky forward quietly - for a 50-foot-tall machine-monster, at least.

Vicky does her best Kommando impersonation, and actually succeeds fairly well at it. Pointing her spiky feet downward and walking on 'tiptoes,' I muffle my girl's footsteps from **GIANT MONSTER RUN AWAY** into **giant wanna-be sneaky**. I make it to almost twenty feet before I'm spotted. _Clowns_.

_Pretty much_,_ boss,_ Corrun responds. As the first cultists turn towards me, I understand why I was so successful at 'sneaking.' The local yokels are Slaaneshi cultists, devoted to the Chaos God of pleasure. They're also high on some seriously screwed-up combat drugs; Vicky's autosenses are picking up near-unbelievable heart rates.

Looking over the cultists, I'm reminded why special forces shouldn't wear hot pink: they'd look too much like the enemy. Their leather, silk, jewelry, piercings and ohdearemperor I didn't know you could pierce that is bound to haunt my nightmares for a week or two. The cultists are an eclectic (read: "yikes") mix, and have weapons to match. Several rockets fly wide, and I can see several of the cultists unpacking grenades and _Lucius-pattern meltabomb detected, caution advised_ – "Alright, frak this."

_Inferno cannon firing, 1.5-second blast_! "Mmm...barbequed banker." Corrun gives me a funny look at that. OK, I'll admit that it sounded creepy, even to me.

The 'friendly' special forces don't acknowledge the help, running beneath Vicky to help their comrades south of us. _Ungrateful bastards_. Thade somehow manages to convey a mental shrug over the mind-link in response. My Vulcan megabolter roars, Osirus plots a route forward, and I step back into the fight.

* * *

Allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and tas- actually scratch that, I don't get paid and my 'taste' hovers somewhere between propaganda holovids and dick jokes. My name is Tomas Arkady, Titan princeps and part of Inquisitor Gideon's "retinue" (read: his bitch). The love of my life stands beside me, in fifteen adamantium-clad meters of asskicking and name-taking. _Invictorus_ is a Mars-pattern Warhound Titan, formerly of the Legio Gryphonicus - or what's left of it, at least.

With the Gryphonne system given the Tyranid-standard makeover (everything organic turned into more 'nids), the Legio Gryphonicus was on shaky legs even before my little 'incident.' After I (barely) survived a run-in with a particularly nasty variation of Nurgle's Rot, the Legio left me and my crew to the tender mercies of the Inquisition. Inquisitor Gideon decided that I was more useful to him with an intact skull, and "employed" me (without paying, the cheap bastard) to burn out particularly nasty groups of Chaos worshipers.

My crew, my girl, and I are housed on one of the Inquisitor's "repurposed" ships (Gideon killed the old crew and brought in his own flunkies). We are the cavalry, the best and last line of defense, the Big Poobah, and the Thrones Stop Here ('cuz we're really broke and need the money). Our little shit-show down on Mustafar might not have been exactly what the Inquisitor had wan-

"Hello, Princeps." Speak of the daemon…

Gliding forward, Inquisitor Gideon circled my crew as Corrun, Thade and I stopped dead. While my crew and I wore our usual drab-blue Titan clothes, Gideon was…._fabulous_. His bulk was concealed under a silk robe that could buy a middle-class family's room and board for a year, and he wore enough jewelry to blind someone (I'd seen him use that before). He'd lead a conversation with a kiss, and styled his hair with enough gel to deflect a lasround.

It was all a weapon. The Inquisitor's silks and fat could (and did) deflect blades. Kissing opponents let him deliver poison, and kissing allies allowed him to pass information. And yes, I'd fired a laspistol at his gelled-up hair once when I'd been sloshed.

Therefore, when the short, fat, and probably gay man spoke quietly and carefully, without a hint of theatrics, I shat bricks. Metaphorically.

* * *

_Warning! Anomalous contact detected, 137 degrees range 43.6 meters – _Shit.

Ignoring my crew and the vox, I swing Vicky to the right and towards the 'anomalous contact' – in Titan-speak, that means daemons. I can see cultists rampaging on all sides, Inquisitorial stormtroopers barely stemming the tide, but all my attention is focused on the charred wreck where I'd made planetfall. This many prepped cultists together meant that they'd been planning a ritual, and apparently someone in the basement's gotten their act together.

Warp-stuff coalesces in the clear air, _Invictorus's_ autosenses registering a heat spike even as I thunder back towards the target. _Target unidentified, range 23.3 meters_ and there it is, in its pierced and studded glory. A Slaaneshi greater daemon stands up from the charred wreckage, spreading pink-veined wings and raising an…ohdearEmperorthatsjust**wrong**.

Vicky has a good answer to Warp problems, though. Corrun's already targeted the thing, and _Inferno cannon firing, 5-second blast!_ The heat bleed-off cooks nearby cultists, their bodies toppling as their brains fry. The daemon staggers under the fusion-fire, but the damn thing is recently summoned, with a Warp gate behind it – 'tough' is an understatement.

The daemon swings its…ewwww…at Vicky, and I crouch as the weapon approaches. My girl's reverse-jointed legs let her barely dodge the attack, and I follow it up by raising my Vulcan to fire. Corrun's already loaded blessed megabolter rounds, and _five rounds rapid, detonation at 21.6 meters_ I let the creature have it. The daemon stumbles back as the groundcar-sized shells punch through it, but it's still _there_.

It isn't another Nurglite, but I can feel the old terror rising as I look at the monster. It's a daemon, it's here, and it won't – fucking – _die_! I take two quick steps back and let the creature have it. _Inferno cannon firing, 10-second blast!_ Vicky's old weapon would have messily exploded from that sort of strain, but Osirus's upgrades let my girl fire for ten uninterrupted seconds.

The daemon vanishes under the flame, but I don't stop there. I walk straight up to the damn Gate, the unreal thing looming large in the wreckage of the target house. Heat normally felt at the center of a star washes over the splintered wreckage, cultists twenty meters away vanishing under the heat.

I'm yelling, a scream of terror and rage and hurt and damnit just make it stop all in one. My flesh-eyes can see Thade diving for his laspistol again, Corrun disconnecting the cannon feeds, while Vicky's autosenses show a blackened wasteland where our target used to me. _All anomalous contacts eliminated_, Vicky almost apologetically reports. "I'm done, I'm done," I croak, staring down a laspistol's barrel yet again.

With the few cultists quickly vanishing under disciplined Stormtrooper fire, I lean back and wait for the recovery crew. "Fuuuuuuuu-"

* * *

The Inquisitor spoke quietly, carefully, and almost respectfully. Years spent honing my self-discipline to keep an unruly Titan in line was the only thing stopping me from pissing my pants.

"Princeps, you destroyed the target building."

I stood my ground, letting my sarcasm do the talking. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea. "Arr, cap'n, we wrecked that-"

"Princeps, didn't I order you _not_ to destroy the target?"

"Cap'n, we be a Titan. Destroyin' targets be a specialty of ours."

"You destroyed the target building."

"Aye, cap'n, be happy ta repeat meself-"

"You destroyed the only clues we had, that had taken me a small ocean of blood and treasure to gather."

"If'n ye wanted a quieter approach, Cap'n, ye shouldn't have sent a Titan to-"

"YOU DESTROYED IT ALL! WHY, DEAR EMPEROR, WHY?"

"Umm…arr?"


End file.
